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My BR diary from the start to IVA and on to BR
spenderblender
Posts: 301 Forumite
Well, here goes, my diary from the start of debt to IVA and jumping into bankruptcy. I hope it helps anyone in the same position and I will update it as time goes on. It is a long read dated along the way.
My BR Diary
28 February 2009
When I got with my OH, I came out of a relationship and had a child. My new partner had no children, worked full time and had no debts. I had a loan, which I had taken out in my name with ex and continued to pay that and my catalogue, credit card bills. I then took out a consolidation loan for 10,000 and fell pregnant.
My OH wanted all new for our baby and every shop we went in were offered the store card. We took them up and did pay them all off in the time before I went into maternity. I took a year off from work when our child was born and everything was fine. We were paying the loan and coping well.
It was only actually when I returned to work in 2003 that we started spending. OH wanted to renew everything in the house as it had all the furnishings, and decor, which I had, had with my ex. I was working full time and so was he. We didn’t pay for child minders as we worked around each other and it worked.
We went out once a week on the weekend and could spend up to £100 on these outings and still paid everyone. By now we had, had other cards and upped the loan to cover other things we wanted. Stupidly I think we had our head in the sand.
By 2005 OH had taken out a loan to pay cards back, which by now amounted to 2 separate loans and, credit cards all needing to be paid. We were still ok and everyone was getting paid until 2006 when I had an accident at work, which stemmed from a previous injury and it put me out of work. I suddenly went from earning £800 per month to bringing in £260. You can imagine the trouble we had. We were robbing Peter to pay Paul every month. I was moving credit from one card to another for interest free months. This went on for a year when I realised it could not go on.
I then found this forum and finally plucked up the courage to post a thread, everyone said to post my SOA but I still couldn’t face the prospect of seeing just how deep in debt we were. Every penny we had was swallowed up in repayments and out of every creditor I phoned only 3 actually responded to my letters for help. I was told the debt had to be paid and that was it. No fee reductions, no interest cut instead they blocked my cards and put the interest up. I finally realised that things had come to a head when I had a cc bill from Cap One. The payment they wanted was £96 and the majority of this would have gone in interest all because they had hiked my interest rate up to 30% after my phone call. I assumed all the others would follow and that the banks would call their loans in. I had to act NOW!!
I posted on the forums again and eventually spoke with Debt Free Direct who, I must admit in their defence did say that BR was the best route for OH and I. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t put my kids through it, my family, what would people say. Oh the shame. I felt bad enough as it was having to sit here in tears talking to someone I didn’t even know raking through all my personal life without it going majorly public.
When I put the phone down on the person from DFD who I was on the phone to for over 2 hours, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I had carried it around for so long and now I felt I could breathe. I had a visit from a lovely man who took all our paperwork, we changed bank accounts to a bank that we had had no dealings with ( this was difficult, there weren’t many) and in Dec we had the creditors meeting. It passed through with an added £30 per month making it £300 every month.
We were delighted, no more worrying it would all be over in five years and no one would be any the wiser.
I did not however bargain for “when things go wrong” as they do. Things to pay, how was I supposed to pay for Christmas with no surplus, what about school trips, little things you don’t think about because you’ve never had to until now, because when I say I am skint I mean it.
I actually went back to work in the hope that I could return full time and ended up being finished again due to the same problem and having to realise that maybe I would never be able to return to work so where we were now is where we are going to be for the next five years and, “Oh my God we can’t do this anymore” realisation when we submitted our review forms in November and heard nothing till January having been on pins all that time and petrified every time the phone rang incase we had done something to jeopardise the whole thing.
We have now realised that we are surely putting our kids through more misery the longer this farce goes on and really “to hell” with anyone who won’t stand behind our decision and us. It is after all our life. We messed it up, we have got to clear it up and this is what we have done.
I have again entered the forums and gained valuable advice from not one but many great minds who have either been there or are on the very same train to destination BR who instead of being angry, pitiful or blaming have all come together due to having the knowledge and wanting to pass it on to others and who are not making light of a bad situation but, have risen above it and now know the value of the simple things in life.
So here we are now, I have missed two payments, one in Jan and now Feb. and had one phone call from DFD asking why and telling me that although I couldn’t afford the payment it still had to be paid. How does that work then? And informing me that I would have to send in an income and expenditure form, which they would send out. I did this obligingly and have heard nothing since.
Some time in the near or far future we will submit our forms to the court and I will update my post as I go.
14 March 2009
We have filled in our forms for court, which took some time due to the overwhelming feeling I got whenever I took them out from the envelope to fill in. I have gathered most of the information needed for the OR and got the fees together by selling OH shares. Now I just need to keep it safe and not dip into it even if I “NEED” to. It is not there so cannot be used.
Why do I feel so odd when I walk up the road and see people I know and want to look away? I get the feeling that they know I have some guilty secret that I am hiding. Perhaps I look guilty and they can guess.
I still have not heard from DFD and after reading Zoë’s thread about their treatment of them, I am reluctant to actually advise them of our impending BR in case they hold our failure certificates back also. I don’t mind holding out for them, as long as any creditors are not harassing me. We will just have to sit it out and wait and see what happens.
16 March 2009
The dreaded letter has finally arrived from DFD, informing us that we are now 2 months in arrears and that it must be paid by the end of the month or we will be in default. Little do they know from the date sent that the payment due to go through to them on the 15 of this month will also not arrive so, I guess this means we have now fully defaulted on our IVA agreement. I await the phone call, which I expect sometime tomorrow.
We have moved all our payments over to the new co-op cash minder account that we have opened in readiness for our BR. Boy, did it feel funny going shopping today and paying with a card. I haven’t done that since Dec 2007. Note to self… Must not get used to it.
2 April 2009
I had not heard from DFD at all until today when we each received a letter enclosing a notice of breach and a letter enclosed stating the terms of the arrangement and, that if they do not hear from us in one month from the date of issue of the letter then they will have no alternative but to fail the arrangement.
As we are not about to contact them then I can only assume that as of 1 May then we will have failed the arrangement and that the failure certificate will follow along with the creditors being back on the phone to us.
We are ready to go to court now so, I guess it won’t be long now until I make the court dates for us.
12 April 2009
Received a letter from DFD today and enclosed was a copy of the letter that is being sent to the creditors. It states that we are one month behind in our payments which, in fact is now two months and getting on for 3 and a full list of payments made amounting to 3,000 and a full list of where our money has gone. The list is made up of DFD people who have been paid for their services and leaves a total amount of £34 to go to the creditors. Wow!! They will be pleased with that.
22 April 2009
The phone rang today and on picking it up the lady on the other end asked for me and said it was DFD and could I talk. I said yes and she went on to explain that the replan team would be phoning me the following day and she wanted to arrange a time, which we did. I am now dreading it and am going to worry about what is coming next time we speak.
23 April 2009
Sitting here waiting for the phone to ring thinking they were never going to and needing the loo darted upstairs only for the phone to ring so now I have to go through this bursting for a pee. At least my mind will be on something else I thought….
The lady was very nice actually. She went through all our incomings and expenditure and also knew that I had done some work albeit only for a few months but, they knew. I covered over that luckily and she went into why our incomings had dropped. At the very end of what seemed a long time but, was only minutes she said that the surplus we had left over was not enough to cover an IVA and that the creditors would very unlikely accept it either. The case would be referred back and the IVA would be failed. I then asked what would happen then. She went on to tell me that the creditors would be informed that it had failed and we would be sent a failure certificate and that it would all be back in our hands.
I asked her how long all this would take and she informed me that it would take about 3 months all together and that should my position change in the case of incomings within the next two months to inform them. She was a lovely lady and I found that by talking nicely and through acting a bit thick in these matters she was very nice to me and explained things that she didn’t have to.
I suppose now we sit back and wait for the next letter, which will put us on the road to BR. I just hope it is after our holiday.
We have now also stopped all payments to the share incentives we were doing and waiting for the cheque of monies paid into them up to now to come through. We are getting more skint by the minute and this will come in handy.
Sat 6 June
WE no longer have any shares as we have cashed them all in and the money has been used wisely, very funny, not!!!. We have received the next letter from DFD explaining that there is nothing more that they can do for us and, they will have to fail the arrangement.
Our letter states that they have no alternative but to approach our creditors, seeking their decision on whether or not to petition for our bankruptcy.
Your creditors have been given 21 days in order to send a response. Once the 21 days have expired we, and the creditors will be informed of the decision.
This was sent out on the 28 May so, I figure we have about another week or so.
I am not sure whether that would be better or not, I think I will have to look into that as a possible. I will not petition for BR though until it gets so bad we have no choice, I think.
We have also now changed the home phone number in readiness so we know that we can answer the phone without worrying who is on the other end.
My feelings now are up and down. I feel really good because every penny that comes into the house at the minute is ours and then I feel really bad about what the next move is. I worry about my kids being told by some other kid in school and taking the mick out of them and, I worry how they will see me and their dad then. This is damned hard but, I feel it is a lot worse to go through with kids as they are just getting pulled with the tide.
Monday 15 June
No word from DFD as yet. I can feel myself shutting down again inside. It is a rather odd feeling like curling up in a ball really slowly. I suppose it must be a reflex action when you know that something bad is about to happen and you get yourself ready to withdraw into yourself.
I don’t know whether it is harder to do this with no-one else knowing or not. Would it be easier if other people knew? Some-how I don’t think it would be. The only good thing to come from all this so far, is that now, when I drive the car I don’t have the feeling of wanting to drive in-front of a wagon coming the other way. I still feel down about it all but, now it tends to hit me when I am here alone. I can’t wait to get it over with now. I wish we had done it sooner but at the time the IVA was a lifeline, and it did give us breathing space and save my sanity at the cost of £3.000 which in retrospect is a good thing.
Sat 20 June 2009
We have received letters today from DFD informing us that they have had confirmation from our creditors that they do not have to make us BR so, now we await the paperwork back and the letters to arrive from the creditors demanding payment.
I find this a bit odd being as when we first entered into the IVA the creditors wanted us to go BR. It would all be over a damn site sooner if they had said yes.
We will now await what happens next but, we will not be able to do it ourselves until October anyway due to commitments we have.
My BR Diary
28 February 2009
When I got with my OH, I came out of a relationship and had a child. My new partner had no children, worked full time and had no debts. I had a loan, which I had taken out in my name with ex and continued to pay that and my catalogue, credit card bills. I then took out a consolidation loan for 10,000 and fell pregnant.
My OH wanted all new for our baby and every shop we went in were offered the store card. We took them up and did pay them all off in the time before I went into maternity. I took a year off from work when our child was born and everything was fine. We were paying the loan and coping well.
It was only actually when I returned to work in 2003 that we started spending. OH wanted to renew everything in the house as it had all the furnishings, and decor, which I had, had with my ex. I was working full time and so was he. We didn’t pay for child minders as we worked around each other and it worked.
We went out once a week on the weekend and could spend up to £100 on these outings and still paid everyone. By now we had, had other cards and upped the loan to cover other things we wanted. Stupidly I think we had our head in the sand.
By 2005 OH had taken out a loan to pay cards back, which by now amounted to 2 separate loans and, credit cards all needing to be paid. We were still ok and everyone was getting paid until 2006 when I had an accident at work, which stemmed from a previous injury and it put me out of work. I suddenly went from earning £800 per month to bringing in £260. You can imagine the trouble we had. We were robbing Peter to pay Paul every month. I was moving credit from one card to another for interest free months. This went on for a year when I realised it could not go on.
I then found this forum and finally plucked up the courage to post a thread, everyone said to post my SOA but I still couldn’t face the prospect of seeing just how deep in debt we were. Every penny we had was swallowed up in repayments and out of every creditor I phoned only 3 actually responded to my letters for help. I was told the debt had to be paid and that was it. No fee reductions, no interest cut instead they blocked my cards and put the interest up. I finally realised that things had come to a head when I had a cc bill from Cap One. The payment they wanted was £96 and the majority of this would have gone in interest all because they had hiked my interest rate up to 30% after my phone call. I assumed all the others would follow and that the banks would call their loans in. I had to act NOW!!
I posted on the forums again and eventually spoke with Debt Free Direct who, I must admit in their defence did say that BR was the best route for OH and I. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t put my kids through it, my family, what would people say. Oh the shame. I felt bad enough as it was having to sit here in tears talking to someone I didn’t even know raking through all my personal life without it going majorly public.
When I put the phone down on the person from DFD who I was on the phone to for over 2 hours, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I had carried it around for so long and now I felt I could breathe. I had a visit from a lovely man who took all our paperwork, we changed bank accounts to a bank that we had had no dealings with ( this was difficult, there weren’t many) and in Dec we had the creditors meeting. It passed through with an added £30 per month making it £300 every month.
We were delighted, no more worrying it would all be over in five years and no one would be any the wiser.
I did not however bargain for “when things go wrong” as they do. Things to pay, how was I supposed to pay for Christmas with no surplus, what about school trips, little things you don’t think about because you’ve never had to until now, because when I say I am skint I mean it.
I actually went back to work in the hope that I could return full time and ended up being finished again due to the same problem and having to realise that maybe I would never be able to return to work so where we were now is where we are going to be for the next five years and, “Oh my God we can’t do this anymore” realisation when we submitted our review forms in November and heard nothing till January having been on pins all that time and petrified every time the phone rang incase we had done something to jeopardise the whole thing.
We have now realised that we are surely putting our kids through more misery the longer this farce goes on and really “to hell” with anyone who won’t stand behind our decision and us. It is after all our life. We messed it up, we have got to clear it up and this is what we have done.
I have again entered the forums and gained valuable advice from not one but many great minds who have either been there or are on the very same train to destination BR who instead of being angry, pitiful or blaming have all come together due to having the knowledge and wanting to pass it on to others and who are not making light of a bad situation but, have risen above it and now know the value of the simple things in life.
So here we are now, I have missed two payments, one in Jan and now Feb. and had one phone call from DFD asking why and telling me that although I couldn’t afford the payment it still had to be paid. How does that work then? And informing me that I would have to send in an income and expenditure form, which they would send out. I did this obligingly and have heard nothing since.
Some time in the near or far future we will submit our forms to the court and I will update my post as I go.
14 March 2009
We have filled in our forms for court, which took some time due to the overwhelming feeling I got whenever I took them out from the envelope to fill in. I have gathered most of the information needed for the OR and got the fees together by selling OH shares. Now I just need to keep it safe and not dip into it even if I “NEED” to. It is not there so cannot be used.
Why do I feel so odd when I walk up the road and see people I know and want to look away? I get the feeling that they know I have some guilty secret that I am hiding. Perhaps I look guilty and they can guess.
I still have not heard from DFD and after reading Zoë’s thread about their treatment of them, I am reluctant to actually advise them of our impending BR in case they hold our failure certificates back also. I don’t mind holding out for them, as long as any creditors are not harassing me. We will just have to sit it out and wait and see what happens.
16 March 2009
The dreaded letter has finally arrived from DFD, informing us that we are now 2 months in arrears and that it must be paid by the end of the month or we will be in default. Little do they know from the date sent that the payment due to go through to them on the 15 of this month will also not arrive so, I guess this means we have now fully defaulted on our IVA agreement. I await the phone call, which I expect sometime tomorrow.
We have moved all our payments over to the new co-op cash minder account that we have opened in readiness for our BR. Boy, did it feel funny going shopping today and paying with a card. I haven’t done that since Dec 2007. Note to self… Must not get used to it.
2 April 2009
I had not heard from DFD at all until today when we each received a letter enclosing a notice of breach and a letter enclosed stating the terms of the arrangement and, that if they do not hear from us in one month from the date of issue of the letter then they will have no alternative but to fail the arrangement.
As we are not about to contact them then I can only assume that as of 1 May then we will have failed the arrangement and that the failure certificate will follow along with the creditors being back on the phone to us.
We are ready to go to court now so, I guess it won’t be long now until I make the court dates for us.
12 April 2009
Received a letter from DFD today and enclosed was a copy of the letter that is being sent to the creditors. It states that we are one month behind in our payments which, in fact is now two months and getting on for 3 and a full list of payments made amounting to 3,000 and a full list of where our money has gone. The list is made up of DFD people who have been paid for their services and leaves a total amount of £34 to go to the creditors. Wow!! They will be pleased with that.
22 April 2009
The phone rang today and on picking it up the lady on the other end asked for me and said it was DFD and could I talk. I said yes and she went on to explain that the replan team would be phoning me the following day and she wanted to arrange a time, which we did. I am now dreading it and am going to worry about what is coming next time we speak.
23 April 2009
Sitting here waiting for the phone to ring thinking they were never going to and needing the loo darted upstairs only for the phone to ring so now I have to go through this bursting for a pee. At least my mind will be on something else I thought….
The lady was very nice actually. She went through all our incomings and expenditure and also knew that I had done some work albeit only for a few months but, they knew. I covered over that luckily and she went into why our incomings had dropped. At the very end of what seemed a long time but, was only minutes she said that the surplus we had left over was not enough to cover an IVA and that the creditors would very unlikely accept it either. The case would be referred back and the IVA would be failed. I then asked what would happen then. She went on to tell me that the creditors would be informed that it had failed and we would be sent a failure certificate and that it would all be back in our hands.
I asked her how long all this would take and she informed me that it would take about 3 months all together and that should my position change in the case of incomings within the next two months to inform them. She was a lovely lady and I found that by talking nicely and through acting a bit thick in these matters she was very nice to me and explained things that she didn’t have to.
I suppose now we sit back and wait for the next letter, which will put us on the road to BR. I just hope it is after our holiday.
We have now also stopped all payments to the share incentives we were doing and waiting for the cheque of monies paid into them up to now to come through. We are getting more skint by the minute and this will come in handy.
Sat 6 June
WE no longer have any shares as we have cashed them all in and the money has been used wisely, very funny, not!!!. We have received the next letter from DFD explaining that there is nothing more that they can do for us and, they will have to fail the arrangement.
Our letter states that they have no alternative but to approach our creditors, seeking their decision on whether or not to petition for our bankruptcy.
Your creditors have been given 21 days in order to send a response. Once the 21 days have expired we, and the creditors will be informed of the decision.
This was sent out on the 28 May so, I figure we have about another week or so.
I am not sure whether that would be better or not, I think I will have to look into that as a possible. I will not petition for BR though until it gets so bad we have no choice, I think.
We have also now changed the home phone number in readiness so we know that we can answer the phone without worrying who is on the other end.
My feelings now are up and down. I feel really good because every penny that comes into the house at the minute is ours and then I feel really bad about what the next move is. I worry about my kids being told by some other kid in school and taking the mick out of them and, I worry how they will see me and their dad then. This is damned hard but, I feel it is a lot worse to go through with kids as they are just getting pulled with the tide.
Monday 15 June
No word from DFD as yet. I can feel myself shutting down again inside. It is a rather odd feeling like curling up in a ball really slowly. I suppose it must be a reflex action when you know that something bad is about to happen and you get yourself ready to withdraw into yourself.
I don’t know whether it is harder to do this with no-one else knowing or not. Would it be easier if other people knew? Some-how I don’t think it would be. The only good thing to come from all this so far, is that now, when I drive the car I don’t have the feeling of wanting to drive in-front of a wagon coming the other way. I still feel down about it all but, now it tends to hit me when I am here alone. I can’t wait to get it over with now. I wish we had done it sooner but at the time the IVA was a lifeline, and it did give us breathing space and save my sanity at the cost of £3.000 which in retrospect is a good thing.
Sat 20 June 2009
We have received letters today from DFD informing us that they have had confirmation from our creditors that they do not have to make us BR so, now we await the paperwork back and the letters to arrive from the creditors demanding payment.
I find this a bit odd being as when we first entered into the IVA the creditors wanted us to go BR. It would all be over a damn site sooner if they had said yes.
We will now await what happens next but, we will not be able to do it ourselves until October anyway due to commitments we have.
:rolleyes: Money Talks ...
but all mine ever says is Goodbye! :rolleyes:
0
Comments
-
14 Aug 2009
Update to previous.
I haven't wrote anything as we haven't heard anything from DFD or creditors since, I last wrote and it feels like we are just living normally with day to day bits coming through the post.
My money is still on standby and the papers are ready but, I am beginning to feel that we will have to refill new ones by the time it all comes about.
Our house insurance is up for renenwal now and I went online to one of them sites that gives you loads of companies. Quite a few came up on the first run and then I thought I'd best try saying we were bankrupt and I was left with one company who I had never heard of. Think we will have to go with the co-op.:rolleyes: Money Talks ...but all mine ever says is Goodbye! :rolleyes:0 -
Hi Spenderblender
Hope you OK Hun.
I can so empathise with the timescale thing.....I must be the longest....non- bankrupt BR person on here!!!
Anyway....why not contact one of the other debt charities CCCS/NDL to overview your situation....or get an appointment with CAB debt advisor to chat through. A failed IVA will eventually start to cause problems.....maybe BR will draw a line under which you can really truly start afresh.
Also just to say that technically, under your home insurance, you are not BR yet.
Take care & keep telling yourself you are doing OK.
Angiexx0 -
ps....how did I ever miss your original diary post
0 -
Hi Spenderblender!
Wow just read this like a hawk (as just joined here today!), i am waiting for my IVA to go to fail, however unlike you I havent made a single payment yet! Had my creditors meeting they approved it but over 6 years, but in the meantime my ex has decided me and the kids can live on air and hasnt paid any maintenance! as the CSA maintenance will be a lot lower I cant afford the IVA, so am just sitting tight not paying anyone and sick with worry! Will have to miss my mortgage payment this month as so skint - like you no credit cards anymore cuz of (trying) IVA so a shortfall is a very very serious thing!
Anyway i hope all is going ok with yours? Are you in a mortgaged property? Are u getting much hassle from creditors? And finally, think you and your other half have done really really well to get through this together well done
xLearn from yesterday, live for today, plan for tomorrow0
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